Western Media and the Rise of Africa Rise Construct

A diligent online search for the pioneering usage of the phrase “Africa Rising” as a close clone of the African Renaissance indicates that it was coined by a Time magazine’s  cover story of March 1998. The article painted the portrait of emerging optimism in which the ‘grand word’ – African Renaissance – was seen as symbolizing ‘slow, fragile, difficult changes that are giving the continent a second chance’ (Mcgeary and Michaels, 1998). The article was “cautious” as it laid forward looking images side by side with pessimistic portrayals such as poverty, dictatorship and instability that had made ‘740 million people sink into hopelessness’ (Mcgeary and Michaels, 1998).

However, two years later, in May 2000, the Economist magazine published the now famous or infamous cover issue entitled ‘The Hopeless Continent,’ one that became the punching bag for Western media portrayals of the African continent. Notably, the Economist’s pessimism coincided with the ferment of the African Renaissance clarion call. As evidence of the ‘failure and despair,’ the Economist painted a grim picture of wars in Sierra Leone, Congo and elsewhere; poverty and pestilence around the continent; floods in Mozambique and Madagascar;  famine in Ethiopia; ‘government-sponsored thuggery in Zimbabwe, the vagaries of bad weather, etc (Economist 2000). 
 
Against the deluge of critical appraisal of its ‘Hopeless Continent’ framing of Africa, the Economist seems, in journalistic parlance, to have stood by its story by dint of not authoring any rebuttals. In what has been described as a turnaround, the Economist published the cover story, ‘The Hopeful Continent: Africa Rising” in December 2011 perhaps in recognition of the changing fortunes on the continent. A Reuters Thomson journalist (Fletcher 2013) seems to have dug at Economist in writing that ‘few doubt that the Africa Rise narrative which has grabbed the attention even of traditional skeptics.’

The Economist’s  (2011) package of articles entertained optimism on account of the fact that Africa had the six out of the world’s ten fastest growing economies and that the continent was outpacing some regions of East Asia. It noted that the middle class was growing fast and foreign investments were soaring on that back of democratic and demographic dividends. However, the articles also took cognizance of pessimistic factors such as persistence of droughts and famines, and poor leadership in some countries. 

In March 2013, the Economist published another extensive special report propounding the Africa Rising, Hopeful Continent theme. Bar region and country specifics and anecdotes, the 2013 edition insinuated an ‘African century’, the ‘China of tomorrow’ and ‘a new India’, thereby continuing the optimism of its 2011 issue: ‘War, famine and dictators have become rarer’, strides have been made on the democracy front, greater role for the private sector and the ‘retreat from socialist economic models’, the ease of travel across borders, the tech revolution, etc (Economist 2013).’ The drawbacks were enumerated as the fact that Africa had had ‘false dawns before,’ the ‘fear that foreign investors would exploit locals’, and rampancy of corruption among others (Economist 2013).
   
Reuters Thomson joined the Afro-optimism portrayal from a globalization dimension with writer Fletcher (2013) citing an African corporate executive thus: ‘There is a pool of capital that sloshes around the globe. If you want to be competitive, you have to put a globalization hat on.’ A CNN commentator, discussing Economist’s turnaround, identified four growth factors: Political stability, the commodities “super cycle”, trade and aid and a technological boom (Pence, 2011).

Forbes magazine (2012) characterized the continent as not just rising, but ‘rising fast.’ Comparison with the West factored in the fact that Africa Rise was happening as ‘the developed West struggle to climb out of recession’ (Fletcher 2013).

Indeed, Reuters went so far as to organize an investment summit with a selected number of corporate and political leaders under the Africa Rising banner in 2013 (Fletcher 2013). It reported top CEOs of blue chip companies: Standard Chartered bank, the Carlyle Group (a Sub-Saharan Africa investment fund) and the Russian investment fund, the Renaissance Capital returning thumbs up verdict for Africa Rise tempered with caution about potential bottlenecks.

Following on its 1998 Africa Rising, Time magazine undertook its own issue in 2012, similarly priming the upward outlook but throwing in downsides. Effectively therefore, Western media may be seen as the ones driving the Africa Rise construct. In the words of Reuters’ Fletcher (2013b), ‘the continent that was a byword for poverty, chaos and bloodshed only a few decades ago, providing a media feast of famines and wars, is slowly but steadily notching up gains on the democracy scorecard too.’
 
It merits pointing out here that the so-called emerging economies, particularly China, were seen as propelling Africa’s economic renewal. Against the tenor of accusations of China – the continent’s biggest trading partner – as pursuing a neo-colonial project, Rickett (2013) says: ‘the dark neo-colonialism of China’s involvement in Africa is often overplayed because it fits into a convenient narrative for the media in the West.’
 
The surge in the Africa Rise narrative – though not so labeled – is not limited to Time, Reuters, Economist and Forbes. While CNN does not seem to be an enthusiast of the Africa Rise label, it established Inside Africa in 1999 to cover light-touch features of everyday Africa that could be considered optimistic and has since followed with equally optimistic narrative programs such as African Voices, African Start-ups, and CNN Marketplace Africa. CNN seems to reserve the pessimistic content for its news bulletins. Other global broadcasters that have launched in Africa include CNBC International (2007), Euronews (2014) and China Central Television (2012) – all of them seemingly sold to affording airtime to the upbeat outlook even though they also report negativities.

Quick final points to make of the emergence of the Africa Rising concept are as follows:

•It is mainly sponsored by Western media and specifically Time, Economist and Reuters Thomson
•It presents an optimistic image of Africa but warns of lurking dangers (pessimism/skepticism)
•It distinguishes winners and losers by country and takes cognizance of the continents diversity
•It closely links governance (political) issues with economic considerations

Responses to Africa Rise Narratives
 
As with labels that seek to frame a dynamic into a couple of catchphrases, Africa Rise has known disputations in its short course. Our careful search for academic writings indicates this construct is still budding and has not quite entered in to intellectual analysis. Thus, we relied on critiques of the construct from media and semi-academic writings.  

In taking a pessimistic turn, a BBC article points out that Africa Rise must be analyzed in the context of economic growth ‘expanding from a low base, making improvements seem disproportionately impressive’ (Akwagyiram, 2013).

Some commentators joined the debate on the pessimistic ‘Africa is not rising’ column, asserting that the majority of ‘poor’ Africans were not benefitting from the rosy GDP figures (Smith 2013; Rickett 2013). This view held that the benefitting ‘cheerleaders’ of Africa Rise were corrupt African leaders and global corporate organizations seeking natural resources. On the basis of this exclusion, Richard Dowden (2013), Director of London-based Royal African Society warned of the potential for coming revolutions at the behest of disenchanted ‘angry young professionals.’

Nothias (2012: 60) whom we met above defining the traits of Afro-pessimism suggests that replacing an overly negative view with an overly positive one runs the risk of portraying an unrealistic picture of Africa.

Rowden (2013) pitched for a manufacturing and industrialization approach to Africa’s development, doubting if liberal market yardsticks Africa’s such as discovery of minerals, rise in African millionaires, increase in mobile telephony uptake and suchlike constituted a rising Africa. Kjell Havnevik (2013), professor at the Nordic Africa institute contests the Economist’s Afro-optimism as ‘false’ on account of among other points Africa’s overreliance on natural resources.

In turn, Afro-optimists maintained a buoyant outlook, presenting as their evidence the fact that the continent had been experiencing a sustained economic growth for more than a decade and that other countries – such as India – had equally achieved economic strides without taking an industrialization route (Yeboah 2013; Robertson and Moran 2013; Green 2013).

Against the backdrop of these contestations, the question is how African media would frame the dichotomous binary between Afro-optimism and Afro-pessimism in the Africa Rise debate.

To be continued

By Bob Wekesa

The author is a Research Associate at University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and PhD graduate from Communication University of China, Beijing, [email protected]

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